Ye wei = a recent Chinese fad where exotic items are consumed with no regard for their rare, precious quality or the detrimental effect on the environment.

Thursday, March 24, 2005

No politics please, we're bloggers...

As much as I admire the McCain-Feingold legislation's attempts to clean up campaign funding, I wasn't thrilled to learn that this might be used to shut up bloggers that dip their toes into politics. This L.A. Weekly article explains a court case that could make this a reality, where blogs that prop up or tear down a candidate or political viewpoint could come under M-F and thus be curtailed and/or regulated. A pretty chilling prospect to say the least.

Ah, but you say "That's for the politicos to worry about, I just dig pop culture..." Oh, you naive fool. In case you haven't read the papers, everything's political. FCC regulations about obscenity fines, media ownership/consolidation concern you whether you like it or not. Congress is now proposing to get into the act, threatening to regulate cable, satellite and the Net itself (again, see the same L.A. Weekly article above). Not entirely pleased about that and what to complain about the people in Washington perpetrating this on your site or blog? You might not be able to.

For the time being, if you do want to complain about this state of affairs, there are options. One is contacting your member of Congress directly and tell them to get the hell out of your computer- Electronic Frontier Foundation provides an easy way to find and contact your representative. You can also get news from the McCain-Feingold Insurrection blog featuring a lovely graphic of a machine gun and computer keyboard with the caption "you can have them when you pry them from my cold dead hands" (surely the NRA would approve). You can also add your name to a petition at The Online Coalition. I'm number 3116 on the list- hope you can add your name there too.